| date: | 2012–2020 |
| preliminary remark: | A selection of my Facebook posts about the 2012 Quebec Student Movement. |
9 August 2020 (my lengthy analysis of the shortcomings of Quebec’s student loans and bursaries program)
During the 2011–12 student movement, I sometimes came across some people’s ‘witnesses’ about certain ‘students who boasted about receiving free money [from unknown source] and who were able to lead a luxury lifestyle while studying’.
In my knowledge, there are three types of students in Quebec who receive ‘free money’; the others receive mostly loans that need to be paid off once they finish their studies:
(1) Scholarship students: they receive typically merit-based scholarship from a certain awarding organisation (schools, private foundations, etc.). The criteria often include academic achievement, community involvement, and/or — an area I know very little about — athletic accomplishment, etc. No one should be envious of these scholarship recipients, because, well, they deserve it.
More controversies surround bursary students, in the sense that some people (aka tax-payers) are more empowered by a feeling of entitlement to scrutinise these students who will be my focus today.
On a side note, the designation in French language of both scholarship and bursary as bourse can be quite confusing. Sometimes the former is called bourse d’excellence (literally ‘bursary of excellence’) and the latter bourse de soutien (literally ‘bursary of support’). In this post I make a distinction between scholarship, which is merit-based, and bursary, which is awarded according to demonstrated financial / special needs.
2 out of 3 post-secondary schools I have been enrolled in offer financial assistance to enable students in need to pursue their education. These bursaries are often established through private donations and in the absence of the donors’ request, individual school determines its own criteria of selection. For example, certain bursaries John Abbot College offers are intended for students enrolled in specific programs (e.g. Auxiliary of the Lakeshore General Hospital bursaries awarded to nursing students). To be eligible for McGill bursary, one needs to be a full-time student receiving the maximal amount one’s eligible for Quebec government’s student loans and bursaries program (programme de prêts et bourses).
My focus today will be the type of bursary established through public funds and administered by Aide financière aux études (AFE) as part of the student loans and bursaries program. Two types of students receive full bursary with zero debt from the government. They are:
(2) Students with at least one child under their care;
(3) Students with ‘major functional disabilities’ that are recognised by the State.
These statutes also enable applicants to receive financial aid while technically studying part-time (in such case the government says the student is ‘reputed to study full-time’ if s/he takes a minimum of 6 credits per semester).
While having children under their care is of little controversy, there are more doubts and uncertainties surrounding the definition of ‘major functional disability’ that may lead people into thinking that there must be a lot of students ‘exploiting’ the system. On the contrary, I should like to hypothesise that, in reality, there are less bursaries being granted to eligible students.
The first reason is that an eligible student may be discouraged by the amount of paper works involved to claim his/her right to receive a bursary. For many people with disabilities, we do not possess a certificate or piece of ID that is automatically recognised by every organisation. Instead, different government agencies have different eligibility criteria and forms to fill out; not everyone likes to deal with bureaucracy. Also, while I am lucky to be followed by a highly empathetic psychiatrist who never complains about filling out medical forms or writing reference letters for me, I did hear about some medical doctors who were ‘tired’ of this task and blamed the patients for always bringing tedious paper works to them. This may further discourage one from going through the troubles of applying for financial help, or of studying altogether.
The second reason is the discriminatory nature the medical form is set up that precludes potential eligible applicants from receiving the bursaries they deserve. Take a look at the medical certificate (form 1015) required by AFE:
‘Major functional disability’ must fit into one of the following categories:
(a) Severe hearing impairment
(b) Severe visual impairment
(c) Motor impairment
(d) Organic impairment
The confusing and discriminatory part about this categorisation is that mental illness (or at least the type of mental illness I am diagnosed with) counts as an organic impairment, even though an organic impairment is clearly defined as a ‘disorder or abnormality in the internal organs forming part of the cardiorespiratory, gastrointestinal or endocrine systems.’
Neither my psychiatrist nor I knew about this the first time I applied for governmental financial assistance. My application was turned down because my doctor didn’t respond YES to any category; he simply wrote down the diagnosis. It’s only until we got the information from an ‘insider’ did we know what box to check. Then within one day of re-submission, my application was approved: nothing about the diagnosis had changed, only the box my doctor chose to check had changed.
I don’t think there will ever be an official statistic about how many applications are turned down because applicants’ doctors didn’t know that organic impairment included psychiatric conditions, but I conjecture that there must be some. This is how the system is set up to prevent people from getting governmental financial assistance.
Now let’s look at the nature of bursaries. Bursaries normally assist students in defraying living expenses during their studies; they are not abundant and the calculation tends to be very strict.
If memory serves well, at the high of the student movement in 2012, the maximum amount (loans and bursaries combined) allocated to a student was about $750 / month, at the time the smallest studio apartment in Montreal cost a minimum of $500 / month. The remaining $250 was hardly sufficient to sustain a month of living (in Montreal). One is expected to share an apartment with others to reduce the living expanse. However, people with certain health conditions cannot live with others; they don’t get more funds from AFE for their higher living cost.
So one is expected to earn a certain salary while studying. If one works, one’s allowance will be subtracted by 50% of one’s salary; this gives a student a maximum income of $1500 per month (i.e. $750 of allowance + $1500 of salary – ($1500/2) = $1500, in this case the student will not receive any government allowance). Since most students earn minimum wage, at $1500 one is pretty much working full time while studying — this is nearly impossible for students with disabilities, who are unlikely to survive without other forms of assistance.
For regular students whose living cost is lower, they may pay, say, $400 for sharing an apartment with others, leaving them $350 / month to spare. This amount is hardly abundant enough for them to be qualified as ‘wealthy’, yet contrary to common sense, they are actually on the wealthier side of the spectrum, because — recall that $750 is the maximum amount, loans and bursaries combined, allocated to a student by AFE — many students receive less than the maximum amount.
To this misery added another one that the government used to calculate one’s allowance rather unfairly, by taking into account parental income without considering the possibility that some parents didn’t want to pay for their children’s post-secondary studies. I heard of one such case involving a university student who was denied access to governmental financial aid, because both of her parents worked, and she was not recognised as independent of her parents who refused to pay for her studies. In the end, she had to work full-time while studying full-time. (How she survived I know not …)
Note that all of my previously mentioned calculations were made on the assumption that students should have the discretion over the use of funds received or earned. Personally, I think this is too much of a responsibility to demand from the youth, when the grown-ups had obviously failed at exercising such discretion (take the notorious Îlot Voyageur as an example). So I suspect that many students’ financial situation is more dire than what I have laid out.
Now back to those students boasting about receiving free money (if they do exist), my previous analysis corroborates my personal guess that these are more likely to be scholarship students, because bursaries only give one very limited financial means to sustain one’s monthly living.
2–4 August 2020 (my Facebook posts (part I & II) about the legacy of the Quiet Revolution on the secularisation of Quebec’s education system and the creation of CEGEP, part of which has become the basis of the Wikipedia article on Parent Commission which I helped creating in 2020)
For my friends who are unfamiliar with the history of Quebec and who don’t know the historical background behind Quebecers’ fight for accessible post-secondary education, I need to mention preliminarily the single most important period of time in Quebec’s modern history: the Quiet Revolution. Starting in the 1960’s and ending in circa 1970, this postwar era consists of numerous major socio-political reforms that curtails the political power of the Roman Catholic Church within the province. Before the second half of the 20th century, the Church was in the dominant position to sacralise all aspects of French Canadian society, from welfare, health, to education. In 1960, the election of Jean Lesage’s liberal government under the slogan ‘Il faut que ça change’ (‘Things have to change’) unleashed a series of reforms that eventually led to the separation of state and church.
In 1961, Lesage government established the Royal Commission of Inquiry on Education in the Province of Quebec (Commission royale d’enquête sur l’enseignement dans la province de Québec) — better known as the Parent Commission (Commission Parent) — chaired by Mgr Alphonse-Marie Parent to study the education system in the province. The resulting report in 5 volumes, known as the Parent Report, published in 1963–1964 was the fruit of reading 349 memoirs, holding interviews with 125 educators across Quebec and Canada, and some 50 visits to Anglo-Protestant and Franco-Catholic schools and other higher-education institutions in North America. [1]
Let me summarise what the last living member of the Commission, Guy Rocher (1924–), said in a 2017 address on occasion of the 50th anniversary of the creation of CEGEP, about the Commission. [2]
Of the 8 members who had the privilege to join the Commission to recommend what turns out to be a ‘sacrilege’, there were 6 men and 2 women. 6 Francophones, one Irish and one Scottish. 7 Catholics and one Protestant. 7 representatives from private institutions — 3 major universities Université de Montréal, Université Laval, and McGill university were represented — with the Irish being the only person representing the public sector. The president of the Commission was a priest who bears a honorific title in the Catholic Church because he was the rector of Laval University. One of the women was a Catholic nun. 6 out of 8 members received classics education from classical colleges (collèges classiques [3], most of them boys’ institutions, only about 20 of them accepted girls [4]) administered by the Roman Catholic clergy. The curriculum, mainly based on Greco-Latin Antiquity and early Jesuit traditions, was designed for a small number of (male) elites. All these indications hint at a very conservative report.
However, the Parent Report turned out to be anything but conservative. The first observation the Commission made was the under-schooling of French Canadians at the time, especially that of women: the vast majority of them didn’t go further than primary school, compared with English Canadians. An archaic church-dominated system was in place that served a small minority who successfully completed the 8 years training in classics with a drop-out rate of 70%. Schools were all private, principally Catholic. If the State wishes to open access to education to the entire population, it would need to implement one public, unified, democratic, education system accessible to everyone. To rectify the situation, the first recommendation the Commission made is the creation of a Ministry of Education — there must be a centralised government agency, acting on behalf of the State, which oversees the transition from private to public, and accepts the financing of institutions from primary school to university.
That education was to be placed under the authority of a secular political power was a heresy at the time all the powers were in the hand of 22 bishops in Quebec. Note that before the 60’s, Protestants enjoyed total autonomy in the education system of Quebec. That Protestants — including McGill University — were to be placed under a deconfessionalised ministry also drew outcry from the English-speaking Quebecers (many McGillians asked to be exempt from this authority). Lesage government needed an year to persuade Catholics and Protestants into agreeing upon the creation of this ministry of education under the responsibility of Paul Gérin-Lajoie, the first Minister of Education.
Now that a state-controlled education system that values the mass population was in place, to ensure that everyone — man or woman, English or French, from rural or urban areas — has the same opportunity to benefit from it, the Report recommended extending the free tuition policy from primary school to university on the long term. Addressing the deep-rooted inequalities in our society, the Commission wanted to ‘ensure that the economic obstacles to access to higher education are reduced to a minimum’. Freezing tuition fee is a temporary measure that was put in place before the eventual elimination of this fee.
An accessible education that was ‘vital to our economic progress and the gradual increase in our standard of living’ (Jean Lesage) [5] was the ultimate goal and the hope of many Quebecers aspired to when the Québec Liberal Party came to power under Jean Lesage (1912-1980). Since the Parent Report, historical records demonstrate that previous generations were ready to confront the authorities whenever the accessibility to education was at stake. It became a sheer irony that the Liberal government under Jean Charest (1958–), who had benefited from the secularisation and democratisation of Quebec’s education system, should propose in 2011 to raise university tuition by $325 per year for 5 years, attaining an increase of 75% ($1625) by 2017. No wonder why during the 9th — and the longest to date — student strike in the history of Quebec, many protesters held signs saying ‘We do not allow social recession’ or ‘Against regressive measures’. I interpret these as saying that people resist going back to an education system held at the interest of a certain socio-economic class.
The secularisation and democratisation of Quebec’s education system has for the object of reducing disparities between men and women, urban and rural, French and English population, which was the first issue the Parent Commission noted.
The second issue the Commissioners noticed was that at secondary and post-secondary level, several types of institutions co-existed in parallel: studies at ‘classical colleges’ led up to university; training at ‘normal schools’ paved way for a career in teaching; plus liberal arts colleges and other vocational and specialised institutions under the authority of several ministries that provided training of uneven quality and incompatible diplomas.
Also, after having gathered various opinions of specialists in higher education, the Commissioners learned that passage from high school to university was difficult. University has always had trouble imparting specialised knowledge to freshman students coming out of high schools who were ill-equipped with introductory program-specific knowledge. University professors and lecturers were not trained to give generalised courses.
Hence, inspired by California’s ‘community college’, the Commissioners suggested inserting an intermediate level, later known as collège d’enseignement général et professionnel or CEGEP, to fill the gap between high school and undergraduate degree or between high school and workplace. These colleges were to be created from existing classical colleges and vocational schools. The new structure would assume the role of instructing general courses in language and humanities, introductory courses in various fields of study as preparation for undergraduate studies, and to provide industry with the skilled labour required in a modern society.
The first 12 CEGEPs opened their doors in September 1967. Collège Ahuntsic in Montreal, for example, resulted from the merging of Collège Saint-Ignace (a classical college) and Institut de technologies Laval (a vocational institution).
The last living member of the Parent Commission Guy Rocher named ‘democracy’ the most predominant factor that made most of the actors on the education stage — members of religious order, elites who benefited from classical college education — accepting the CEGEP project:
C’est au nom de la démocratisation de notre système d’éducation que nous acceptons que ma communauté religieuse se départisse de son collège, de son école normale.
Guy Rocher [2]
It’s in the name of democratisation of our education system that we accept that our religious community be divested from its college and normal school. (Translation mine.)
____________________
[1] http://www.larevolutiontranquille.ca/en/the-parent-report.php
[2] Rocher, G. (2019) ‘Verbatim de la conférence de Guy Rocher au Congrès de la Fédération des cégèps (26 octobre 2017)’. Après 50 ans : L’évolution des cégèps inspirée des réflexions de Guy Rocher. Sainte-Foy: Association des cadres des collèges du Québec.
[3] https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/college-classique
[4] http://collections.musee-mccord.qc.ca/scripts/explore.php?Lang=1&elementid=107__true&tableid=11&tablename=theme&contentlong
[5] http://www.larevolutiontranquille.ca/en/the-creation-of-the-ministry-of-education.php
21 May 2012 (my response to this night protest)
This is not the city I love.
When is it legally allowed to set traffic cones on fire in the middle of the streets, in the heart of a city, knowing that this may release toxic fume? When is it socially responsible to prevent firefighters from exercising their duty, knowing that this may put the safety of many and the sanctity of our home in imminent jeopardy?
What’s wrong with the spectators watching, applauding, encouraging the reckless and dangerous making of the fire that probably had an emotional attraction of its own in this theatre of confrontation so little desirable?
I have not moved an inch in my continual support for the student movement, for what I deem a very noble cause. And though not a direct victim myself, I do with reservation believe that police brutality is a reality which, lived by many, has pathetically repeated too often in the past 3 months. But whoever insults or pelts projectiles at the police in a situation qualified as riot gives a pretext for the excessive use of physical force to be applied to every innocent citizen.
I have no wish to vindicate for they who ought to be legally convicted of the crimes committed by their own hands. Nor have I any wish to nourish the anti-police or anti-protester sentiment permeating every forum of opinions by adding yet another heavily polarised comment of hatred. My only thought at the present moment is the following:
No one can be more profoundly shocked, confused, distressed, than the vast majority of concerned citizens capable of protesting in appropriate manner, when unwanted incidents turn their demonstration into an illegal assembly. Nothing can be more frustrating than that those who for altruistic motives and exalted ideal are defending other’s rights, should themselves be portrayed as anarchists threatening our democracy.
| from: | Linda |
| to: | WB |
| date: | 18 May 2012 (last edited on) |
| preliminary remark: | My 8-page reply to a friend with whom I had an one-hour conversation about tuition hike and student protests. During the time I was composing this letter, she wrote a blog post on this subject which I didn’t read until I sent out this reply. |
Dear WB,
This overdue letter is intended to complete our last discussion on the issue of tuition hike — I actually agree with most of what you said, despite the seemingly opposite positions we have taken — with personal reflexion and additional information I have found for sheer intellectual curiosity. Things happen too quickly everyday that I am not able to keep my brain up-to-date with the newest development in the debate; pray bear with me that my ideas may be outdated. (Linda just notices that you have written up your promised response which she shall read with great pleasure as soon as Linda’s OCD mind, which is still living in last week, comes to a state of completion and satisfaction.)
(1) As a long-term self-claimed outsider to this society, I sympathise with and feel very sorry for all who wish to stay detached from the student-government conflict yet whose life has been negatively affected. I have hoped that the movement I support in principle could inconvenience the least persons possible, but to my dismay, many a radical tactic has been employed in this struggle, some of which — occupying administrative offices, blocking buildings, disturbing circulation — I personally do not agree with. The majority of students have decided that civil disobedience is more powerful than self-mutilation in bringing about a genuine social change, so I can but have no say in this matter.
I was convinced, with a great deal of disquietude, by some students that when no natural way — that is, negotiation — we might hope can press the government to revise their policies, when the students have exhausted all their means in raising an outcry to which nobody in the authoritative position listens, strike is the only remaining choice. It has never been on the top of my list of protest means — amongst my favourite are sit-in and fasting — and pray believe me that I am not the only person in the pro-strike lobby who wishes it could end soon.
(2) It is curious how democracy amounts to the tyranny of the majority, and sometimes by delicate manipulation, of the minority. In a provincial election, the Liberals can rule the province with barely 24% of public support (they won 42% of votes during the last election with a turnout of 57%); in a general assembly, a few hundreds of students can make an important decision for a few thousands. Whether you like it or not, once thrown into this world, everyone is already part of the game that must be played without his/her own consent. The absents deserve no sympathy.
Student associations vote regularly to determine whether the strike should be further prolonged. If AW’s friend Peter has never partaken in the decision-making of his association, he should probably show up at the assembly and vote. In the worst case, perhaps he could resort to jurisdiction to defend his right to education, although judging from the intensity of the current situation, the efficiency of this method is dubious, and is far from being the optimal solution.
(3) The legitimacy or the linguistic foundation of student ‘strike’ per say is less a concern for me, for on the one hand, social context can make a legal notion ambiguous (e.g. (civil) marriage), and on the other, dissenters of the statue-quo are almost always judged wrong within the extent of the jurisdiction and ethics of the present days, which are subject to change anyways (have you ceased to be amazed by that rules are set up in order to be overturned one day?). If the current context does not provide a legitimate platform for students to express their dissent, well, let us create one.
That students are doomed to lose on the legal ground is one of the factors drawing my instinctive sympathy and magnetic affinity for them. I am more vexed by the government, who has the laws on its side, to discredit the validity of student’s demand by shuttering their ears, pretending that student strike is nothing else than a pseudo-strike disguising under a garb that will not stand the test of the jurisdiction. The sad fact, as it turns out, is that committing such conflict to the judgment of the Superior Court only led to the awkward and problematic situation in which injunctions are not respected.
A little research on the history of student movements of previous decades in Quebec shows that the word grève (strike in English) has been used a great many time, including during the previous massive student demonstration which the same prime minister witnessed in 2005. If Mr. Charest has any doubt about its legitimacy, he should have raised the question before; falling upon it during the crisis only escalates the tension between the students and the government. (For the sake of your linguistic mind, I coin a new word ‘stricott’ to denote what the protesting students mean by ‘strike’, what the government means by ‘boycott’ and what you deem as an illegitimate notion. I used a Greek alphabet during our last conversation as temporary substitution; I hope my neologism makes you happier.)
(4) I certainly agree with you on that students ought to be blamed for some inappropriate courses of action. I would even go as far as expressing my hope to see a reform of the constitutional structure of what is covered by the umbrella organisation ‘student federation’: a more just voting procedure, a hierarchy that can make them more accountable for the incidents of smashed windows, damaged cars and pelted projectiles, if committed by their members, and gives more weight to their representation on a national level — that is, towards the government. The legislation concerning student stricott should be dwelt upon as well.
My guess for why the general assemblies are permeated with vague propositions is that many student unions, such as my departmental association operated by its bylaws, are not politicised bodies, and often than not, have no other function than providing support and services to their members within the confine of the respective institutions. I do not think this should necessarily lead to the conclusion that students driven by youthful enthusiasm have no insight to contribute to the society, or must forfeit their opportunity to effect a change, hence my biggest dissatisfaction during the whole conflict proves to be the displayed pride and obstinacy of government officials.
(5) When documenting a protest from a McGill building in March, I was struck by a conversation between an English-speaking scholar and a grad student, during which I overheard the sentence: ‘This is the French model.’ It was not clear to me whether by ‘this’ the scholar was referring to accessible education at a low tuition fee (‘Continental-European’ seems to me more fitting a designation) or was suggesting that the practice of mass mobilisation pertained to the French heritage, or maybe both. It led me to ponder why in my surrounding, Francophone students brandish aloft the flag of revolution more readily than Anglophone Canadians — most of whom are unconcerned, unsupportive, or supportive but with reservation — in defending their vision of education rather than the interests of particular individuals (it is a strange coincidence that most of the English-speaking students in my department are not Quebec residents).
I should not attempt at explaining this phenomenon that deserves an exposition more thorough than my personally biased observation and contemplation, but I will write down my reflexion nevertheless (it may be better to consult the opinion of an expert in the humanities, for my ‘theory’ may falls prey to a unwanted misunderstanding of history or incoherent paralogism).
As you surely have observed, this socio-political debate ranges farther afield than tuition increase; it is a fight for an ideology that goes beyond mere pragmatic consideration, a fight that has its root in the Quiet Revolution, when the State faced a urgent need to modernise obsolete systems of education, health care and social services, that were previously under clerical control. The demands were numerous and the impacts manifold: in the area of education alone, we saw the creation of the Ministry of Education, of CEGEPs and University of Quebec network, of student loans and bursaries program. Amongst a series of promises made at the time was greater accessibility to higher education for the entire population, as everywhere there was awakening of the realisation that education was the instrument of social and intellectual emancipation for French Canadians.
My purpose in putting the current conflict of pathetic uncertainty into national context is that I do not think your remark on the student’s demand of free education entirely captures the essence of this historical struggle — you said, paraphrase mine: ‘They should have demanded it in previous years, before the current proposed increase.’ I would venture to say that aspiration for free education has always been in the background of the battlefield, if not at the front line. They want to keep the tuition low so that free education, an as-yet unfulfilled promise, can become a reality one day. Since the Parent Report, historical records demonstrate that previous generations were ready to confront the authorities whenever the accessibility was at stake; past victory perhaps has contributed to enliven student’s determination today. I for my own part do not find it difficult to accept that a large amount of Quebecers should adhere to this educational ideal which some have referred to as a source of national pride, nor is it unthinkable that half a century later, mass movement emblematic of the older generation’s desire to fight and hope again successes to mobilise the lower strata of the society around the goal of defending equality between classes.
Some observers are already talking about this ‘Maple Spring’ as a sequential to the Quiet Revolution which had ushered in the shaping of a new national identity intricately linked to French language and culture. Perhaps, I again hazard to guess, it is a deeply entrenched part of the culture to uphold a value system imbued with peculiar quality of its own for the sake of a greater common good, a vision that is too beautiful to be relinquished. Any attempt to remove the Catholic identity from you, or the French language from the Francophones, would amount to a catastrophe and meet with equal, if not greater, resistance. For this reason, I hesitate to agree with your hypothesis that had the government consulted with students and mapped out clearly areas of future spending, people would be willing to accept the increase. Odds are that half of the currently protesting students would still refuse to concede an inch, pointing to, quite righteously so, better way of funding post-secondary education — that is, through progressive taxation and not individual payment.
In all, the nexus between social ideal and national identity is stronger than the difference in political allegiance would imply. Those who oppose to the cause may look with detached amazement at the lavish waste of time and energy infused by hundreds of thousands of concerned citizens into this 12-week of public tumult for a seemingly trivial issue. May the same indifferent bystanders remember that an atheist too looks at the absurdly prodigious number of young pilgrims gathering for World Youth Day and confraternity activities with the very same scorn and derision: how similar we are in condemning one another’s endeavour as a formless, ungraspable, mysterious fuss over nothing!
(6) This quaint historical footnote should aid in clarifying the flourishing of manifestations of more diverse nature organised or assisted by activists who recognise the potential of student movement for launching a broader societal change and ideally provoking a series of government reforms. These activists, in return, are able to enlist students for their causes for the vast majority of students not only despise the planned tuition hike but also resent the wanton use of physical force and random arrest in policing, the ever-growing allegations of corruption within the Liberal government, possible environmental damage caused by exploitation projects, etc. Thus, as the need for a common bond overlaps with an anti-governmental antagonism concerning the current strife in the socio-political arena, activities fused with student protest — e.g. annual events such as protest against police brutality, Earth Day celebration, anti-capitalist protest, and even the recently degenerated protest in Victoriaville, all had more than one goal and were led by more than one group — naturally multiply. In short, the longer the crisis persists, the more inevitable the tendency for protests to diverge in means and purposes, and this, to the benefit of nobody, also supplies a very opportune motive for the emergence of belligerent extremists.
The student-run daily protests, on the other hand, may appeal more specifically to the newest episodes in the crisis, be them for the sake of denouncing vicious police crackdowns, rejecting governmental offer, or replying to the minister of education’s comment about the silence of the ‘majority’. Lest it should be forgotten, let me remind you that the night ritual of marching across the city of Montreal originates from the conflict that led to the exclusion of CLASSE from the negotiation table. To one who has not paid attention to every turn of the movement it may appear random yet is far from being incidental, and has its roots in the national spirit, that a great many theme should be built upon student’s opposition against tuition hike.
To date I do not see there is much danger that the student representatives will misplace their target of tuition increase and institutional mismanagement. Many demonstrations are ill-organised in a haste, no less marked by wishful thinking than with proper design. Some students and their supporters have chosen questionable actions or are associated with wrong people; the evidence of the existence of individuals who believe violent confrontation helps their cause to be noticed internationally is altogether too convincing to be doubted. I do not exclude the possibility that some students perchance indulge in daily protests ‘for fun’, nor that their supporters wear the red square because it is à la mode. Nevertheless, I would hesitate to consent to the insinuation underlying your complaint — ‘people just like to protest’ — which, in the light of the worst interpretation, disregards the entire movement as mere ‘entertainment’ having no real substance, springing from no deeper passion than a vague egoism. I can conceive of no more preferable a protest than one characterised by festive atmosphere, inasmuch as a protest driven by anger only helps to irritate those of choleric temper in a conflict that is already tense.
To speak from my own experience only, since I cannot speak for anyone else, I have had no expectation of pleasure for marching in the awfully cold rain and heavy wind, passing many a weary mile of trail and toil for hours, yet I did enjoy the group dynamics mysteriously united by some kindred association of the brethren’s elevated spirit, which was not only capable of imparting a sense of organic unity to an assembly of individual protesters, but which sublimates into something blithely positive the weariness ensuring each of my participation that requires prolonged days of rest to be rid of my body. If to have enjoyed a moment proves so much as a grave sin, I ought to confess that I have derived the maximal of gratification from the sight of a great many pretty crafts mingled with ugly ones, witty slogans put next to insulting ones, videos of both extraordinary and mediocre quality, and all things coming out of the struggles of young souls, hungry for a resting amidst a stormy sea where no light propitious shone.
(As I finished composing the last paragraph, I have just realised that the unspoken part of your complaint is perhaps not so much about simple enjoyment than as to when such enjoyment becomes excessive and the unique goal of protest. I am afraid that this would call for subjective judgment, and only the liver of the experience can tell.)
Allow me to open a gigantic parenthesis for a long digression into the liturgical polemic about the performative aspect of ritual in the context of Christian worship. In case you have never understood why theologians of every generation constantly warn the danger of taking delight in sacred music or religious art, you may find curious parallels between mediums of divine worship and mediums of genuine protest, which I have been considering as a performance art. Your doubt of the real substance of student protest mirrors the historical bias against sensuous experience shared by Augustine and Aquinas alike, or the Calvinist principle according to which not every form of music pleasurable to the human ears is beneficial, or the measures set against the theatrical performance and operatic style of liturgical music following the Council of Trent … all of which seem to demonstrate a common fear that the sacred function of the divine liturgy should become a secondary concern subordinate to art. In the modern day, your Pope [Benedict XVI] — an inveterate opponent to music dedicated to no discernible purpose other than the display of peculiar virtuosity (rock music) or music derived from pure commercial need (pop music) — is amongst those who worry that church becomes the place where people may indulge in sensual ecstasy of an impoverished liturgical life without elevation of the spirit, provided that there is so clear a line of demarcation between the sensual and the spiritual.
Somehow in their theological mind is the firm conviction that boosted into the public consciousness is a crave for catchy melodies, sentimental schmaltz and whatever stylistic musical choices useful for drawing the audience into the appreciation of the liturgical drama but not for the worship of God. I shall not pretend to be able to separate this aesthetic aspect that should be considered altogether psychologically, if not theologically, and analysed as an integral experience of worship. And I shall venture to suggest that the percentage of a protester who is motivated by mere excitement and enjoyment without the slightest wish to fight for accessibility of post-secondary education, is perhaps just as minor as a church-goer filled with aesthetic emotion without reflecting on its spiritual content.
Church art needs not to be mediocre, no more than protests need to be banal or oppressed by ennui. There exists not only one way to launch the message. Our youths are in an ethos in which the ends are thought to justify the means — Does it matter how the outsider perceives them? I do not pretend to have an answer … I have long since wanted to ask you. In the current social context, I gather that public opinion does matter, especially if the conflict is to be resolved in election. Since the mass is often (mis)led by preconceived prejudice, and people’s reaction is already prescribed by their take on the issue, it would help student’s cause to avoid queer creation or whimsical thinking should they itch to be freed from misunderstanding.
(7) You asked me how I expected this crisis should end, honestly I do not know. Both sides have to budge in order to move out of this tumultuous quarrel, yet the government keeps evading the issue of tuition hike with all the clever ‘offers’, and the student associations keep rejecting all the proposals ‘negotiated’ through the media. A crisis provoked by pragmatic concern should be resolved by pragmatic solution, which has yet to be found at the negotiation table.
For the moment, my ideal end is to suspend the hike for a year or two, giving time to entrust an independent committee to examine the whole system, from mismanagement of public funds to underfunding of post-secondary institutions. At the time the government faces multitude allegations of corruption and universities are accused of institutional dysfunctionality, it is difficult for me to believe that there is nothing wrong. It suffices to look at the famous Îlot Voyageur to get the point: after that the government lavished millions of dollars on its construction, there it stands bare and plain, in an unfinished state. That the student federations have focused on the mismanagement of universities and government officials I think they are right. Blindly throwing in money while leaving very few hints as to where the money goes is only a temporary stopgap; it merely alleviates a pressing need on the surface, but does not prove to be a long-term solution to the core problem.
It is a moot question whether after a settlement is reached between the government and student representatives, recalcitrant students on stricott will be willing to return to class. After all, such a grouping of student unions as CLASSE, unlike a labour union, does not have real authority over its affiliated members. I personally have as much wish as everyone else in knowing how and when this crisis shall end. I can only hope that it will not result in anything of the same magnitude as Arab Spring or London riot. It is my sincere hope that we can end it by shading far less blood and doing less damages to public or private properties.
Contrary to popular fervent dissent from the pro-student lobby, I think quite positively of the government’s offer made on 30 April, in that the improved bursary/loan program seems to bring real benefit to a certain number of less fortunate students. However, I also lament at the government’s paternalistic attitude; this is really what should have been done long ago, or at least at the same time as the planned increase was announced, before all these unleashed vicious police crackdowns occurred. Also, the creation of a committee overseeing university spending is long overdue. So to me, and to me alone, the government’s response remains unsatisfactory.
(8) I would like to challenge your idea of ‘challenge’: I do not think the challenge needs to be monetary; rather, in the context of education, it would make more sense to me if it be intellectual, social, or emotional. After all, youngsters in industrialized nations are already facing chronic sleep deprivation, overwhelmed by academic demands, extracurricular activities, peer and parental pressure to excel, why do you want to impose yet another burden on them with the need of a part-time or even full-time job?
University is a critical experience in providing students the opportunity to gain the knowledge, skill, and autonomy necessary to become financially independent and capable of contributing to society. Rising tuition fee and student debt does not help students getting a healthy daily routine and adequate sleep, without which there is increased risk of lower grade, academic failure, and compromised learning.
(9) ‘Socialism doesn’t seem to work in our province’ — Well, we haven’t paid enough of high tax to match with the Scandinavian countries. In your opinion, what kind of education system is sustainable?
(10) I fear that we will be constantly facing an unrelenting conflict between both parts, since our list of priorities is not the same — The result? Everyone is right in one’s own eyes.
This letter has extended to far greater length than was designed in commencing it. I hope I have done adequate justice to your previous discourse.
Yours,
Linda
P.S. I learned one thing: the Catholic Church conceded to the secularisation and modernisation of the then archaic education system at the condition that school boards remained confessional (the confessional division was only abolished in the late 90’s), though I still don’t understand why the clergy should have insisted upon this.
LINDA’S ARTWORLD 